To provide a more accurate, complete, and up-to-date account than has previously been available of the role of alcohol throughout U.S. history and the determinants of its consumption, four related tasks will be performed: (1) A Chronological History of Alcohol in America, from colonial times through the 1980s, will be prepared focusing on epidemiological-related data. This will include the largest bibliography to the primary and secondary source materials for the study of American alcohol history ever published. (2) The data compiled in the Chronology will be analyzed as it relates to (a) changes in consumption levels, patterns, and trends, (b) the social response, and (c) the factors influencing them. We will seek to draw general conclusions from past developments which may have public policy relevance for the future. We will also attempt to shed light on the extent to which there exist long waves and cycles of consumption that follow a pattern, and the possibility that the leveling off of consumption that has occurred since 1979 might be the beginning of a long-term downward trend. (3) We will undertake several time-series analyses to explore, the value of quantitative analysis in understanding the epidemiology of alcohol use in American history and the dynamics of consumption cycles. This exploratory research will include an assessment of available data sets and how they might be used to determine more precisely the major influences on consumption cycles, as well as what additional work would be necessary to generate other useful data. (4) The findings of both the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the USA data will be compared with that of several European countries that we have investigated previously. This will help determine which trends and influences may be generalizable across countries and time periods.